Anyone planting any experiments this year? By experiments I mean something you've never grown before? Something new, strange or exotic? I'm trying sesame and fenugreek again this year, with vastly improved hossenfeffer (wabbit) control. (The little varmits mowed off all my sesame and fenugreek last year - TWICE!)I'm also trying a type of green called a beetberry (also called strawberry spinach). Your turn!

Not too much this year, as I'm trying to scale back. (Emphasis on the word "trying"!) :_|

But, in the way of flowers:
-A fairly new perennial Agastache (Hyssop) "Golden Jubilee". Purplish flower spikes on licorice-scented golden-chartreuse leaves.

-A dwarf (2'-3')hollyhock, "Queeny Purple".

And in veggies...not so much as new for me, more like a "revisitation" of something I've tried before and had little success: Celery. "Ventura" from Johnny's.
(Any hints on celery growing, btw, would be greatly appreciated!)

gardenz

Yes, all the time! (LOL)

Since my main crop that I sell all over central Alabama, is my premium homemade compost, I'm letting my entire 3 acre farm home be a demonstration lawn and garden for visitors to see what active hot composting and aerobic tea brewing does on soils, veggies, herbs, and flowers.

I'm growing my sweet corn on a new 30'x4' no-till sheet composted bed, using many 3'x3' wide band blocks plus walking space room, instead of long classic rows. This will help me get around the tall corn better this summer for foliar feeding. I'm also using more flowering, quick growing, buckwheat and sunflowers around the corn as a companion plant and cover crop, in order to deter the Japanese beetles in our area. Always plant various beans and peas as a cover crop and companion plant around corn also for extra nitrogen fixation and for edible foods.

I'm growing my watermelons a little differently this year in higher, richer, raised mounds, about 3-4' apart, using okra as companion plants in between them. NOTE: Tall growing plants are great companions with wide growing plants.

I'm using more high protein, grain meal, cattle and horse feeds in my soil amendments and tea brews this year. Since I have access to more salmon and grouper fish scraps this year, I'm going to mix it up with lots of rooting untreated sawdust, and use it more in my compost piles and my aerobic tea brews.

I also found a cheaper source for my liquid and dry molasses for better microbial growth in my garden beds.
The extra sugars will also help the microbes digest and absorb more available nitrogen from the soil, thus causing the available P and K and other micronutrients to become more available to my flowering plants this year.

Edamame-or what ever you call the soybeans that you eat before mature...lots of different flowers from fellow OG'ers seed exchange group-they are wonderful...hopefully when I get my gardens going I can then collect and redistribute flower and veggie seeds through the exchange too. Stuck...

and I almost forgot, corn salad (mache), stevia, and hazelnut trees.

Eucalyptus, Cerinthe, and a white heirloom tomato called 'Beaute Blanche du Canada' are my new tryouts this season. My big project will be to build up the organic content of all the existing beds, and finding homes for all the spirea shrubs in them.

Are you talking about regular animal feed? Also the molasses covered shreded beets at the feed store? How do you use it? Just put it on or "Tea anyone"?

Hey, where did you get "beaute blanche"? Willing to trade seedlings? I don't have room for lots of seedlings, but I do like to experiment with tomatoes.

My experiment this year is growing the seeds I collected last fall and over the summer. We'll see what the germination rate is. I don't expect much from my tomatoes, as I didn't let them ferment very long before drying them. But the Stowell sweet corn looks promising -- uncooked cobs sprouted all chia-like in my composter last year! I haven't bought more than half my usual purchase from Terra Edibles, thanks to saved seeds.

Another unknown is my carrots. I managed to locate the two-year-old oxheart carrots that flowered, but I'm not sure what I'm going to get, as they could have pollinated with just about any other weed growing in the neighbours' yards.

Another experiment: cramming what I was going to put in the community garden into my own back and front yards. The community garden is, for the moment, no more. The town where I live is interested in setting up a permanent garden site, but it is just on the outside of my "bikable" envelope, and there's no guarantee it will be ready to go for this growing season. So instead of scaling back my backyard veggie garden, I'm expanding even more. Oooooh, the kids are going to really hate me when they find out they have room for their paddling pool OR their roller coaster!

I have a whole new yard and garden, so gardening this year will almost seem like an experiment.
I've got my compost tea aeration system to try and some new flowers,herbs and vegies to try. I will actually have sun from 8 in the morning until it sets,so that will be new.
New on my list will be bronze fennel,lime basil and sweet dani basil.
Helianthis'Lemon Queen",Nepeta 'Walkers Low'
Seeds of Agastache Rugosa:Korean Mint
Kolibri, Purple cauliflower, Lucullus and Sunshine Winter squash

Beaute du Canada - a white tomato, I got from Upper Canada Seeds, 8 Royal Douton Drive, Don Mills Ontario M3A 1N4. I am willing to send you some seeds, just send me a SASE. If you like odd tomatoes, I've got a few listed on the Seed Exchange under 'Surplus Seeds- Vegetables'. I'd love to compare your thoughts on Beaute as well as 'Carbon', which might be the ugliest, best tasting tomato I've ever dared myself to bite into.
The owner of Upper Canada Seeds is narrowing his grow list to just tomatoes next year, and charges $2.00-3.00 per packet. He's got an amazing variety for a 'Mom & Pop' business.
My mailing address is in the Seed Exchange posts as well.

Well my experiments for this year are pickling cucumbers: West Indian Gherkin, National Pickling, and Boothy's Blonde. I am also trying Ping Tong eggplant and then Pimento pepper. Then there is the Ocean Springs Herb Festival...hmmm! Musn't forget the Creole Red garlic I planted back in November.

New this year?

Nepeta "Select Blue"

Blueberry "Sunshine Blue"

Rhubarb "Cherry" for my Michigan-born BIL

Aster "Munch?" can't remember - it's supposed to be bright blue, but semi-dwarf - we'll see.

Ordered water-saving mats for containers from GSC - should be soon when I can tell whether or not they work. I'm also going to water the containers with compost tea only to see if that helps them retain moisture.

4 dahlia divisions my neighbor gave to me - one of them is called "Driveway Red" because he can't remember which Swan Island variety it is. But it's at least an A size dinnerplate decorative - ooh. Last summer, his blooms were bigger than my head!!!

Also trying a new dwarf Plumbago that's a dark blue compared to the sky-blue blooms we normally see beside the freeways here. It had gorgeous burgundy color last autumn when I got them in their 4" pots.

The biggest experiment of all will be "tending" a newborn girl - she should germinate in mid-May. Seeds were planted last August. I'm sure that'll impact my gardening time somewhat this season...

-nita

Absolutely! I have the most fun when there are at least a couple new experiments grown each year. They, more than anything else, keep one going out to the garden each day (or twice!) so see "what's new?".

New for this year:

1. Adding a raised bed for peppers, with hoophouse covering so I can get those seedlings out in May. Around here, June is the norm for setting them out, so this will give some of my red peppers a fighting chance to turn red. (And several of those peppers came courtesy of Owl, who will be co-experimenting with me on item #2 below!)

2. Ground cherries -- very much looking forward to a pie that should taste pretty much the same as it did when the pioneers gathered these berries in the wild 150 years ago.

3. White cherry tomatoes, pink plum cherry tomatoes and long green eggplants (the latter two from Thailand) courtesy of Baker Creek Heirloom seeds.

4. Starting my carrots much later than usual. I know it is common to get carrot seeds in as early as possible. For me, that results in carrots that are mature in August, way before I am ready to pick and put them into storage for the winter. This year I am timing it so they are ready to pick late September and I can get them a little sweeter from the frost before I have to pick them.

5. Growing more of my cherry tomatoes upside-down in buckets on my sunny deck. Going to build a rack that will securely hold 4 buckets. Get these plants closer to the kitchen for convenient fresh picking.

nita,
Best wishes on the biggest harvest of your life in May!!

I am trying some grafting. I don't know much about it other than a bit of knowledge I got from books. But since I own a very ugly apple tree that doesn't produce great apples, I thought I might as well attempt to improve the quality of the fruit. I got the scions from an incredibly productive apple tree which grows unattended in one of our local city parks (!), and which I believe is a "Winter Banana", I shaved them properly and grafted onto some branches of my apple tree. I did this also because I think some day the apple tree in the park will be gone. I am afraid someone will think that a "messy" fruit tree is kind of "unsightly" compared with all those beutiful deciduos forest trees nearby, so I think maybe I'll be able to preserve this wonderful variety in my back yard. And, by the way, any advise on grafting would be greatly appreciated!

Gardpro zone 5b.

I LOVE babies! Congradulations, and keep us posted!